Interact: Rosie’s story

Rosie has type 1 diabetes, which she treats with fast-acting insulin before each meal. She tries to count her carbs, although she tends to forget and just takes her usual dose of insulin. She also takes long-acting insulin at bedtime which she never misses. Her diabetes control isn’t too bad although her glucose levels are usually quite erratic – she hates having hypos and gets embarrassed if she has to manage them in front of people. Her best friends know about her diabetes but she tends to keep things to herself. She has a diabetes nurse that she likes, but she doesn’t really talk about a lot of her worries.

She has been doing a beauty therapy course at a college in her home town for about a month and is planning to continue to live with her parents until she finishes the course. The course is made up of a mixture of practical sessions and lectures, and she’ll be in college every day for the first year.

Rosie’s made some friends and is quite happy chatting to them. She has mentioned that she has diabetes but hasn’t really explained what it’s all about. One of her friends has an uncle who has type 2 diabetes, which he controls with tablets, but the rest don’t know much about either condition. She doesn’t want to seem any different from her friends, and so she never tests her blood glucose at college. She often doesn’t have time to do her lunchtime injection, and when this happens she just misses it out. She is happy to skip it, as not taking her insulin also means she won’t have hypos in the afternoon.

Rosie has noticed that at teatime her blood glucose is always over 15 mmol/l when she’s been at college. She’s worried because her course is about to start doing practical classes, which will involve a lot of standing around and will also mean that she gets to start practising on clients. While she’s excited about that, she’s also worried, as she’d hate to have a hypo in front of other people.